When the Cock Crows

by Waldron Baily

During the summer weeks that followed the departure of her father, Ethel lived happily enough, content with a routine of life that included entertainments of the usual social sort and especially the almost constant company of her lover.

One of her favorite diversions was a visit to her father's yacht, which lay at its moorings off Eighty-fourth Street in the North River. There was only a caretaker left on board during the Colonel's absence, but Ethel was fond of spending an afternoon in solitary enjoyment on the yacht. Under the after awning she would sit at ease in the low wicker chair, by turns reading, watching the ceaseless traffic of the river, musing on love and happiness—which meant, always, Roy.

Came a day when Roy was summoned home by the illness of his mother. Ethel went with him to the station and saw him off. It was long after noon when she had given the last word of farewell and the last kiss of tenderness to her lover. Ethel thought that she would like to seek the repose of the yacht for a period of tranquil meditation in the luxurious depths of her favorite chair under the after awning.

She rode to the dock in a taxicab, and the yacht's tender took her to the vessel. It was just then that a great steamer passed, and as she would have mounted the stairs to the yacht's deck an unexpected swell from the passing steamer smote the stairs so violently that Ethel was thrown back into the boat she had just left, with an ankle crushed under her own weight.

The girl realized that it was badly sprained. She gave orders that she should be carried on board the yacht forthwith. She decided then that she would send home for whatever might be needed—and, too, for the family physician.

With the assistance of the caretaker she managed to reach her cabin, and then sent the fellow to bring the physician in all haste. She pulled off her outer garments and donned a kimono, and crawled into her berth, to await the Doctor's coming.

It was within the hour that the little tender came back toward the yacht, carrying a passenger.

This was Doctor Gifford Garnet, the family physician. He hurried up the companion way, and went at once to his patient's stateroom. A very short examination sufficed. He saw the girl was suffering excruciating pain from the injury to her ankle.

The physician himself was a victim of morphia. And, too, he was a man of imagination—a most dangerous quality in one of his profession. Now, as he regarded the girl, he realized the intense suffering caused to her by the wrenched tendons in the ankle. That thought of suffering sickened his sensitive nature, so that he felt an emotion almost of nausea from the pain he knew her to be enduring.... And he was a coward. Pain had come to him often. Because he was a coward, he had fled from it—interposing morphia as a shield against its attack. So, now, in sympathy for the anguish endured by the girl he turned to the drug to give her relief from suffering. He made an injection into Ethel's arm.... The girl watched his movement with listless eyes. Then she sighed and smiled as she felt the gentle sting of the needle. At once she sank into an untroubled sleep.

Dr. Garnet regarded her for a moment with a curiously contemplative stare. Then he grinned grimly, pulled up his coat and shirt-sleeve, and pressed the piston of the hypodermic, driving a heavier charge of the drug into his own blood.